In recent years, a wireless network in which a terminal (a receiving device, a communication device) switches between an active state and a sleep state, based on a transmission wave (a beacon) transmitted from a base station (a transmitting device), and an operation is intermittently performed has been proposed. Such a wireless network in which an intermittent operation is performed is used for, for example, a wireless network for a sensor, power consumption of which is desired to be reduced, and the like.
In wireless communication, transmission and reception of data are wirelessly performed between a transmitting device and a receiving device and, in many cases, when such transmission and reception of data are performed, the receiving device is driven by a battery. When the receiving device is driven by a battery, it is desired to reduce power consumption to thereby increase the lifetime of the battery and reduce the frequency of replacement or charge of the battery.
Therefore, the receiving device is configured to perform an intermittent operation in which a related circuit (a transmitting and receiving circuit) is put in an active state only when reception or transmission of a signal is performed, and other than that, the circuit is put in a sleep state that is a low-power consumption state.
That is, in wireless communication, a period of an active state in which reception or transmission of data is performed is far shorter than a period of a sleep state in many cases. Therefore, it is enabled to reduce average power consumption in the receiving device by controlling an active state and a sleep state, based on a beacon transmitted from the transmitting device.
Incidentally, up until now, various methods for performing control of a receiving device that receives a transmission wave, based on a transmission wave intermittently transmitted from a transmitting device, have been proposed. Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 08-307342, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2004-328501, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 09-093185, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-114671, and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-069107 discuss related art.